


Unto

by anomieow



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Foreshadowing, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rimming, Tender - Freeform, marriage talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28847562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow
Summary: “It’s not much,” John says as he follows Henry into the attic room he’s taken for them for the weekend.“No,” Henry says, stepping toward the former window, the blue-lace-edged curtain lifted in on the salt breeze. “It’s wonderful.” He presses up on locked elbows to thrust his face into the cool, generous light of early afternoon. A few blocks of slanting roofs and chimney blocks curve away down the hill and, beyond that, the sea. A silvery undulation of chipped light; the distant, slow beat of the surf. A chill salt scent. Henry inhales deeply.“I’d thought to find something more… spacious,” John continues. He’s truly embarrassed, Henry realizes, turning to see the tall man with his hands clasped before him, head slightly ducked. He closes the window and turns, taking John’s face in his hands and tilting up to kiss him.
Relationships: John Bridgens/Henry "Harry" Peglar
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	Unto

“It’s not much,” John says as he follows Henry into the attic room he’s taken for them for the weekend.

“No,” Henry says, stepping toward the former window, the blue-lace-edged curtain lifted in on the salt breeze. “It’s wonderful.” He presses up on locked elbows to thrust his face into the cool, generous light of early afternoon. A few blocks of slanting roofs and chimney blocks curve away down the hill and, beyond that, the sea. A silvery undulation of chipped light; the distant, slow beat of the surf. A chill salt scent. Henry inhales deeply. 

“I’d thought to find something more… spacious,” John continues. He’s truly embarrassed, Henry realizes, turning to see the tall man with his hands clasped before him, head slightly ducked. He closes the window and turns, taking John’s face in his hands and tilting up to kiss him. 

“Here,” Henry says, “come look out the window.”

Bridgens follows him slowly and wraps his arms around him. Henry doesn’t have the tongue to say how glad he is, just in this moment, but all the rest of his life he will carry his memory of it like a lucky amulet or a stone worn smooth. The bright sun on his closed eyelids, smell of windowpane and salt sea, John’s powerful arms wrapped around him. He opens his eyes: the blue of the curtain’s the same soft blue of the sky and he feels himself pouring out, part of something larger and lovely and fated. 

“I wish we could be wed,” he says. 

“No good to even speak of it,” John answers. His voice is low and worn and Henry’s sorry he’s said it. But then, after a small warm silence John says, “We can pretend this is our honeymoon, if you’d like.” 

“I’d want no other,” Henry answers earnestly and turns in John’s arms, raising his face to be kissed and kissed and kissed again. And, in a sense, it is. They have been intimate before, and shared rooms, but this is a leisurely weekend together, the last before returning to begin preparations to leave for the Arctic. It is the longest time they’ve had together, and will have to do. John kisses him with slow intensity, his strong hands in his hair and on the small of his back. This, too, Henry will carry with him, the press of the windowsill against his back and the light, cunning glide of John’s tongue along his. Soon John’s muscular thigh is pressed between his and he lowers himself down to nearly straddle all his weight against him. John pulls his mouth loose, smiles against his cheek, and hoists him unto himself— _unto_ , a funny word but there’s no other word for it; it is as a groom and bride, if they will go about the work of their lives with clean and forthright hearts, take unto themselves each their share of the other in whole. _Unto._ Yes, that’s the only word Henry knows for the flowing forward he feels, the spreading into light, as John lifts him and then cradles him in his arms. Bride, cradled and carried. This holy sensation of surrender and assent: he never loses it. It is as though he will be borne in those arms til the last.

Then he is on the bed and John’s undressing him in that thoughtful way he has of doing, an edge of slyness to his eye because he knows Henry wishes to be torn open, a gift given to a greedy child. John brushes away Henry’s hand at his own clothes, too, for he prefers to undress himself slowly too, standing up straight to undo button by agonizing button, eyes downcast as though he were alone, as he removes his shirt. It’s not about modesty but self-assurance—he knows Henry’s eyes are hungry upon him in his glad and eager way. He takes himself idly in hand as John reveals his wide, silver-furred chest, the faded shadows and sweeps and arabesques of all his tattoos. The glint of the bars through his nipples. But then he leaves his trousers on, his brown bracers hanging loose from his waist, and crawls onto the bed.

“My bride,” he mouths against Harry’s neck, “my heart. _Nothing in the world is single;/ All things by a law divine / In one spirit meet and mingle. / Why not I with thine?_ ”

Henry only smiles: it’s too sacred for his fumbling words, how all John’s poetry makes him feel. But he knows his joy, he’s sure of it. He wiggles beneath him, trying to bring their cocks flush. 

“No,” John says in a tone of soft command, pressing at his hip with the heel of one broad hand. “Lie still.” 

So Henry does, trembling. He watches John work his way down his body, trying his best not to thrust or grab or push: John wants him to be still. He can tell by the way he moves, a stately and patient journey down the pale river of his body toward where his prick juts, rosy and tip glittering, from a sandy thatch of curls—then past it. He’s patient, John is, deliberate: how one persistent rivulet of water carves chasms. He kisses his way down the juncture of Henry’s thigh and pelvis, and a moment later Henry lifts his hips in surprise as John presses his lips against his fundament. Then comes his tongue, wide and slick and warm, blazing a bright path from the ruching of his hole to the tender curve of his stones and back down again. John then works Henry’s legs a little further apart and begins to lap and suck at him in earnest. 

Henry lifts his head to see what he can see—just the black and silver sweep of John’s hair, the heavy sledge of his shoulders. It feels wonderful, a persistent warm slickness, and he feels his body loosening. They’ve never done this before: Henry’s never had anyone so much as offer, and John has perhaps never felt at liberty. For now he lifts his face and, looking sharply into Henry’s eyes, smiles. He wants, absurdly, to thank him—for the privilege, for the flavor of him, for the way he’s rolling and bucking and giving off little gasps and broken moans. But he lets the moment pass in quiet because words would crowd, would clutter. With Henry they are not needed.

Henry’s face is flushed as he smiles back down at him, his wide-set gaze gentle and dazed. There was a time, early on, that he’d felt like a trespasser unto Henry’s body, so much younger and more elegantly formed than his, but now he knows he’s welcome here. It is home: and his, Henry’s. He is foolish and lucky and glad and to keep from weeping his joy out, he once again buries his face between Henry’s lithe thighs and feasts. He listens for what pleases the young man best by the sounds he makes; he feels for what brings him, gasping, to press himself down and toward him, speaking, with the shift and flow of his body only, the words _Yes. More. Please._

When he’s able to point his tongue and slip it in, he takes ahold of Henry’s fine, plump little prick and makes light little passes up and down the rosy length of it in rhythm with the thrust of his tongue. 

“Please, John, I’ll spend, you know I will—”

“That’s what I’m after, love.” He replaces his tongue with two crooked fingers. “I would see you, here in the light of day—” He tightens his grip and begins to stroke in earnest.

“Don’t you need—”

He shakes his head and a soft smile creases his features. “We’ve time here, now that I’ve got you past the threshold—bride of mine.” 

Henry gasps and his cock twitches in John’s hand. His fingers dive deep and strum across the parceling of nerves there as he says it again. “You _are_ my bride, Henry. There has never been another I would speak such to.” He casts back through the faces of those he’s known before, their shapes and voices and ways, but all loom as flat as figures in a faded dream. He envisions himself lifting Henry up like a bride in his arms, the dip of his hip cradled between his elbows and his head to his breast: it pleases him. And if he does not, in this moment, heft him up as such, he does so in heart. In spirit. He feels, for a moment, a gladness so great it nearly fells him. 

But then he reads in Henry’s eyes sinking shut, in the whine that creeps into his breath, his coming crisis, and sinks his mouth again between his thighs: the slow, perfect blossoming of him. He feels the half-breath held and then the contraction around his tongue of his shirred opening. Hears him cry out, feels him buck into his fist. _Bride,_ sings John’s blood, _my bride, my bride, my own._


End file.
